What are the policy's objectives?

More than £600m has been spent on the massive universal credit project, intended to replace a hotchpotch of benefits and tax credit topups with a simple, single monthly payment to claimants that would include a "subsidy to work". A claimant will be sure that, for every extra £1 earned, no more than 65p will be removed from their existing benefits.

The idea is simple in theory: by collapsing six existing benefits into one monthly payment, fraud and error will be minimised and running costs reduced.

Last year, with more than £600m wasted on preparations, the project was "reset" to zero and started again. Only the most basic IT systems in 2% of Jobcentres have stuttered into life catering for single claimants.

After more than a year, the totalnumber of claimants is still only around 12,000 according to the DWP.

Why is it proving so difficult to do?

The system has to make fiendishly complicated calculations based not just on the income of one person, but everyone else in the household.

To make matters worse, there is the "lobster pot" principle – once a claimant is in the universal credit system, he/she remains in it.

For example, previously single claimants might now be living with partners with children.

Because only 2% of the country is covered by universal credit at the moment, those who move home are finding that their local Jobcentre staff are not trained in the new process.

The system is creaking at the seams even with the tiny number of current trial claimants.

The Department for Work and Pensions abandoned plans this week for any rollout of the replacement mobile-friendly "digital solution" beyond 10,000 claimants being on the system until 2016.

This year only 100 claimants will trial the new IT.

What alternative options exist to find a way forward?

Experts now believe there is no chance of the IT working nationally for all claimants by 2017.

More than that, though, the DWP must realise that:

■ the implementation must be one benefit at a time, rather than trying to collapse all six into one simultaneously

■ the approach needs to be truly incremental. Politicians must accept that, even at a rate of one major step forward every three months, the 40 or so major dysfunctionalities of the existing systems and processes will take 10 years or so to iron out.

An increasingly automatic benefits system will develop over the next 10 years – but at the moment there is no clear roadmap for how this government, or its successors, will get us there.

Brian Wernham is an independent project adviser and the author of Agile Project Management for Government